IAN FLEMING - Goldfinger - chapter 3

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Chapter 3. The Richest Man in Britain It was a week later and Bond was back in the headquarters of the British Secret Intelligence Service in London. He was thinking about Jill Masterton. It had been a wonderful trip in the train to New York. Bond and the girl had eaten the sandwiches and drunk the champagne. Then they had made love in the narrow bed of their private compartment. Bond had asked Jill about Goldfinger. He'd wanted to know if Goldfinger had been angry after the card game. Jill told Bond how Goldfinger had behaved. Goldfinger hadn't shown his feelings at all. In fact, the millionaire had given Jill a message for Bond. He'd said that he would be returning to Britain in a week's time and he wanted to play a game of golf with Bond at the Royal St Marks Golf Club. When they arrived in New York, Jill had told Bond that she was returning to Goldfinger. Bond had tried to stop her. He was worried that Goldfinger might hurt her. 18 But Jill wasn't frightened of Goldfinger. And she didn't want to lose her job. Goldfinger paid her well. Bond had given Jill the $10,000 that he'd got as his payment from Mr. Du Pont. Then he'd kissed her once, hard on the lips, and had walked away. They hadn't been in love with each other, but they had had a wonderful time together. A red phone on the desk in front of Bond rang. This was the phone that Bond's boss, M, used to call him. Bond picked it up. 'Come up to my office, 007,' M's voice said. 'Yes, sir.' Bond went up to the top floor of the building. He knocked on the door of M's office and went in. M was sitting at his desk, reading some papers. 'Sit down, 007,' M said. 'Last night, I had dinner with the Governor of the Bank of England. He told me that the Bank has a serious problem with gold smuggling. The people at the Bank are sure that someone is taking large amounts of gold out of Britain illegally. Do you know anything about gold?' 'Not much, sir.' 'Do you know who are the richest men in this country?' 'Well,' said Bond, 'there are some very rich businessmen. Some bankers are very rich too, and so are some members of the Royal Family.' 'Yes,' said M. 'But there's one man who is richer than anybody else. He's called Goldfinger - Auric Goldfinger.' Bond started to laugh. 'What's so funny?' 'Sorry, sir. But I met him last week.' Bond replied. And he told M the whole story of his meeting with Goldfinger. 19 'Well, 007,' said M when Bond had finished speaking, 'the people at the Bank of England suspect that Goldfinger is a gold smuggler,and they want to catch him.' He stopped speaking for a few seconds, then continued. 'I've arranged for you to meet a man called Colonel Smithers at four o'clock this afternoon. He's the head of the Bank of England's research department. He'll tell you more about the Bank's problem with Goldfinger. 'Colonel Smithers was a quiet, serious-looking man who wore glasses. But when he started to talk about gold, he became very interesting. He lived, thought and dreamt about gold. He told Bond about the history of gold and its value. He said that each country has its own supply of gold. He also told Bond that there is yellow gold, red gold and white gold. 'My job, Mr. Bond, is to check if gold is being smuggled out of Britain. When I find out that someone is smuggling, I inform the CID Gold Squad. We try to get the gold back and arrest the smugglers.